BRANDS
The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Walmart had built dozens of AI agents across a myriad of internal systems and, now, it will cut back to four “super agents.” Each is at a different stage of development including the super agent known as “Marty” which has retail media network implications:
“Marty, the supplier-facing super agent, is expected to launch in the coming months, according to the company, and will ultimately include functions like checking the analytics on purchases and suggesting and putting into motion advertising campaigns.”
Read more in the WSJ. (July 24 – subscription)
More:
- Walmart unveils ‘super agent’ framework for AI tools (July 24) – Supermarket News
- See “Retail.Rewired” on Walmart’s press site. (July 24)
BRANDS
PwC says AI to supercharge growth
PwC released a report yesterday containing data on the use of artificial intelligence in advertising.
Reuters covered the news and PwC’s expects AI will help drive a 3.9% annual growth rate by 2029 and “the global entertainment and media industry’s revenue to $3.5 trillion by 2029.”
More data points from the PwC report:
“Advertising spend forecasted to grow three times as fast (6.1%) as Entertainment & Media consumer spending (2%) – as AI set to transform advertising models and drive hyper-personalisation.”
“Digital formats, which account for 72% of overall ad revenue in 2024, will rise to 80% in 2029, with new technologies including AI and hyper-personalisation expected to drive this even further.”
Read more in the PwC press release. (July 24)
BRANDS
Vaudit aims to reduce ad waste with AI
Vaudit (formerly BlokID) announced Wednesday that it had raised $7.3 million to audit the advertising ecosystem on behalf of brands.
A press release explained:
“Vaudit is a real-time AI audit engine that monitors advertising campaigns 24/7, detects billing anomalies, and generates legally defensible audit evidence to help businesses recover wasted ad spend.”
The release also discussed a bit about the company’s pivot to Vaudit – which is short for “Virtual Audit” and “represents the company’s ambition to bring institutional-grade auditing capabilities to every business, not just the enterprise elite.”
Mike Hahn is the CEO of Vaudit. He discussed his current company’s plans in a LI post on Wednesday including: “Over the past year we have consistently driven an average of 8 to 10% money back on our customers monthly advertising bills.”
Omar Hamoui, who sold his AdMob mobile ad network business to Google in 2010 for $750 million, is an investor.
Read more in Vaudit’s press release. (July 23)
AGENCIES
Keywords: “AI advertising agency”
Sir Martin Sorrell’s S4 Capital agency, Monks, is busy aligning itself with “AI” if Google Search results are any indication.
A search yesterday from the New York City area showed the creative+media agency (formerly known as MediaMonks) prioritizing its positioning on the SERPs.
More: Opinion – “Agencies vs. AI—why brands still need strategic partners” (July 24) – Ad Age (subscription)
SELL-SIDE
Brainstorming publisher AI opportunity
Fresh from an IAB Tech Lab workshop on Wednesday called “Monetizing the Open Web in the Age of AI,” Achim Schlosser, VP Global Data Standards at Bertelsmann, reported on LinkedIn about the meeting that brought “together publishers, LLM providers, CDNs, and monetization platforms under one roof.”
Mr. Schlosser’s takeaways from the workshop included:
- “Driven by zero-click AI answers, the incentive to invest in quality content erodes if there’s no remuneration. Without change, we risk losing vital parts of the web ecosystem, namely publishers with deep editorial content.”
- “Besides Crawlers for training data, Agentic Systems will soon dominate the overall crawl volume and will be in constant need for content to ingest in the context memory – this can create a real business opportunities.”
- “If publishers want compensation, blocking crawlers and AI agents is a prerequisite. Control first, monetisation second.”
- “We discussed intensively if the market is already there or not with AI providers eating through VC money, but we will only know once we block them at large.”
- “Turning editorial teams into “content sweatshops” is a dead end though. Visibility, attribution, and clear off-ramps for users to engage on-site must be non-negotiable.”
Also on LinkedIn, IAB Tech Lab CEO Anthony Katsur promised that information was imminent on a working group related to the “LLM Content Ingest API Initiative.”
SELL-SIDE
“Google Zero” Doomsday clock
On Wednesday, Axios hit the panic button on behalf of publishers and provided a list of what media companies are doing to prepare for the day Google Search no longer sends any traffic their way. Axios labeled the phenomenon the “Google Zero” doomsday clock.
Wired’s new products made the list as did Wired management’s urgency:
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“In an editor letter, Wired’s global editorial director Katie Drummond framed the changes as a response to the ‘traffic apocalypse,’ citing the decline of Facebook traffic and Google search referrals. The solution is to ‘connect our humans to all of you humans,’ Drummond wrote.”
Read more on Axios. (July 23)
TECH
Meta’s AI+ads vision
“In Mark Zuckerberg’s brave new world of advertising, artificial intelligence will do everything. Advertisers on Facebook and Instagram will simply punch in a few lines of text detailing what they need. Then an AI chatbot will do all the work, from crafting a strategy to creating a brand image and even composing a jingle (…).”
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Meta Stock Takes A Breathtaking Leap. What’s In Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook AI Vision? (July 24) – IBD
TECH
Data points: Incrementality and Meta
Incrementality measurement company Haus teased its upcoming report on Meta’s AI-enabled ad buying system. Testing results appear to be impressive.
Incrementality answers the question, “Would this conversion have happened if the user hadn’t seen my ad?”
Haus said on LinkedIn that the full report comes out next week.
TECH
More reaction: Google Q2 2025 earnings report
The Wall Street Journal’s “Heard It On The Street” column noted yesterday that AI may be growing “traditional” Google Search rather than snuffing it out in favor of AI answers. The WSJ cited Wednesday’s earnings release as well as other anecdotal evidence such as:
“Independent analyses suggest Google’s AI search strategy is indeed having an impact. Search impressions—the number of advertiser links that show up in searches, even if they aren’t clicked—grew by 49% in the year since the overviews were launched, according to a May report from BrightEdge, a search-engine-optimization firm.”
From tipsheet: Advertisers are trying to spend more than ever in traditional Google Search if # of blue links in a search engine result page is a signal. What happens when the blue links join AI Overviews or AI Mode? We should find out soon as New Street Research analyst Dan Salmon said to investors post-earnings report on Wednesday.
Read more in the WSJ. (July 24)
And, get the BrightEdge report from May here.
More:
- Alphabet’s Revenue Skyrockets, And AI Overviews Gobble More Of The Search Pie (July 23) – AdExchanger
- Google’s AI fight is moving to new ground (July 24) – Financial Times
TECH
AI video ad makes social “waves”
A social media influencer is making waves with an Ikea-inspired idea for a video ad. Fittingly, she apparently assembled it herself with Google’s Veo 3 model.
According to Fast Company’s Grace Snelling, the video ad shows that “AI ads can actually be good.”
Ms. Snelling wrote: “This clever play on Ikea’s iconic build-it-yourself model is a glimpse into how far AI models have come in the past several months, and how much of a role they’re poised to play in the future advertising landscape. While it’s not actually a real ad for the brand, it looks convincing enough to be one.”
Read more on Fast Company. (July 23)
And, see the ad on X.
PROMPT
How will the influencer market be affected by AI in 5 years?
The influencer market is expected to undergo significant changes with the integration of AI in the next five years. Here are some potential effects:
Market Growth
- The AI influencer market is projected to reach $6.95 billion by 2024 and continue growing, driven by increasing adoption of virtual influencers across industries.
- The broader influencer marketing industry is expected to reach $32.55 billion by 2025, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 33.11%.
Read more details on tipsheet.
MORE
- Brazilian agency partners with Adobe GenStudio for AI-powered creativity (July 24) – PPC Land
- In new memo, Microsoft CEO addresses ‘enigma’ of layoffs amid record profits and AI investments (July 24) – GeekWire
- Prem Akkaraju, CEO of Stability AI, emphasized how generative AI is reshaping advertising pipelines in his interview with the Financial Times (July 24) – Financial Times (subscription)
- Brainlabs Enhances AI-Powered Full-Funnel Media Capabilities with Acquisition of Exverus Media (July 22) – press release
- Google: Normal SEO Works To Get Into AI Overviews – SE Roundtable (July 24)